The route was to take off into the hills via Bourne End and Marlow and then establish how things looked with the new guys and make adjustments, longer or shorter along the way; unfortunately it was John or me leading so there was every chance of a 10 mile trip around Maidenhead as we headed off.  Sophie lacked confidence on the bike with the traffic from the off and though her fitness (a whole lot of spinning) and metal was never going to let her down, she did do a very neat demonstration of how to unclip with the left leg and then try to put her right leg down in the middle of Marlow high street. No real damage except for a few scuffs on the very new bar tape but nothing was going to get in the way of Sophie carrying on…..

Reasonable progress was being made at a moderate pace, with a few stops being made going up to Frieth; Katrina and Elsa riding well whilst Sophie settled in and sorted out better gearing options, the smile never leaving her face as she worked hard to keep pace.  Over the x road and heading onto Fingest, for some reason I paused at the triangle which gave John the opportunity to suggest we all go up the 10% Oxford Road hill – (just off the Fingest road and hang a right). Everyone was up for it when on turning right to face what was in front of her, Sophie again gave us an expert demo on just exactly what happens when you drop from the large ring to the granny (triple) whilst being on the largest sprocket – the legs just wouldn’t turn fast enough. Another “untidy dismount” in the road pursued and by this time John and Elsa were half way up leaving me to untangle the derailleur and chain from the spokes. I managed to get derailleur, chain and the derailleur hanger back into a shape that resembled the one on my bike and undeterred off we went……….. Well to a point, I decided looking at the likely outcome to stop Sophie and to turn back (another mistake) . I went up to collect the others but realised as I came back to the bottom at the T junction that my brillo new disc brakes really were something else, but at the same time it was dawning it me just how many handful of calliper brake it would take to bring everything under control on the other bikes; another squeal meant that Sophie had managed to use the hedge at the bottom to complete her stop avoiding the car waiting at the junctionJ.

From there on in it was all about calming everything down. It was an enjoyable quiet ride across through Hambleden onto Henley, out through Wargrave and onto Twyford where all three newbies did a great job of staying on their bikes and keeping the pace up despite tired legs. As we headed back into wind through the Walthams, John took up as sweeper and Katrina and I pushed our way back steadily to catch Elsa by which time Katrina’s legs were screaming (after a little encouragement from myself…. ah I just can’t resist) but as we finally got back to the clock tower there were smiles all around with further promises of a return.

After belting home I made it 55miles so well done to the girls on the 35 miler. Pace was expectedly well down on the regulars, and would have suited Malcolm’s new joiners ride a treat.